The Janissary Tree

[ 45 ]

The Kislar Agha had the voice of a child, the body of a retired wrestler and weighed eighteen stone. No one could have guessed his age, and even he was not completely sure when he had crawled from his mother’s womb beneath the African sky. A few pounds of unwanted life. Another mouth to feed. His face was covered in dark wrinkles, but his hands were smooth and dark like the hands of a young woman.

It was a young woman he was dealing with now.

In one of those smooth hands he held a silver ring. In the other, the girl’s jaw.

The Kislar Agha dragged the girl’s head sideways.

“Look at this,” he hissed.

She closed her eyes. He squeezed his hand tighter.

“Why—did—you—take—the—ring?”

Anuk squeezed her eyelids shut, feeling the stabbing tears of pain. His fingers had caved in on the soft part of her mouth and she opened it suddenly very wide. His fingers slipped between her teeth.

She bit down hard. Very hard.

The Kislar Agha had not screamed for many years. It was a sound he had not heard himself since he was a little boy in a Sudanese village: the noise of a piglet squealing. Still squealing, he brought his left hand up between her legs, sagging slightly for a better grip. Don’t mark the goods.

His thumb searched for the gate. His fingers stretched and encountered a tight bunch of muscle. His hand clamped shut, with iron force.

The girl gave a gasp and the Kislar Agha pulled himself free. He put his sore fingers under his armpit, but he did not let go.

He wriggled his fingers and the girl jerked her head back. The Kislar Agha pressed harder. The girl felt herself being pressured to roll aside, and she obeyed the pressure.

The eunuch saw the girl flip over and fling out her arms to meet the ground. He gave a sudden pull with the pincer of his hand.

Panting now, he dropped to his knees and began to fumble at the folds of his cloak.

He’d forgotten all about the silver ring.

He remembered only the need for punishment, and the itch for pleasure.